The U.S. Department of Energy recently announced that ComEd could receive up to $5 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or “ARRA,” funding for the utility’s smart grid solar pilot.

 

In addition to examining customer responses to pricing signals, the one-year project would also examine the impact of renewable distributed energy system, and how they can best be integrated into a future smart grid system.

 

ComEd’s solar pilot would include around 200 customers. The company said that most of these customers would be among the first 140,000 ComEd customers to receive a new smart meter through their proposed AMI pilot.

 

Currently, the AMI pilot is under consideration by the Illinois Commerce Commission. Smart meter is a digital electric meter that collects usage information every 30 minutes and sends that information to ComEd via a secure telecommunications connection.

 

In the pilot, a group of customers would receive solar photovoltaic systems -- some with energy storage capability -- and be placed on a real-time electricity price and net metering program, company officials said. Additionally, other customers in the pilot will receive only an energy monitoring display.

 

Anne Pramaggiore, president and chief operating officer at ComEd, said that ComEd’s solar pilot will be a sophisticated study of how renewable distributed energy systems can be integrated into the power grid.

 

“We are proud to be a pioneer in leveraging groundbreaking technologies and identifying ways to provide our customers a smarter and greener electric delivery system,” Pramaggiore said.

 

ComEd’s smart grid solar pilot will study how integration of photovoltaic panels and energy storage into AMI systems will affect reliability of the distribution system, observe and evaluate the way consumers engage with technology and respond to price signals during peak and non-peak demand times. Additionally, it will also assess customer attitudes toward adopting new and emerging technologies.

 

The estimated award to ComEd for the solar pilot is $5 million. However, the final grant amount is pending negotiations between ComEd and the U.S. Department of Energy on project details, company officials said. The pilot is expected to begin in early 2010.

 

The partners for this ComEd pilot include the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center, which will survey participants to assess attitudes toward adopting new/emerging technologies, Argonne National Lab for data gathering and analysis and GridPoint for battery storage systems and photovoltaic and energy monitoring.

 

The ARRA of 2009 is going to provide grand funding. Officials said that a part of the fund, around $117.6 million, is allocated for disbursement by the U.S. Department of Energy in support of innovative solar energy technology proposals.

 

Additionally, ComEd has also applied for $175 million in ARRA federal stimulus funding to more than double the AMI pilot project and expand investment in other advanced automation technology.